The Kantian Sublime: From Morality to Art (review)

500 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 29:3 JULY 1991 and dislikes in the history of philosophy. Bacon and Newton are mentioned favorably, as is Socrates in the area of moral philosophy. There are also several passages commending Hippocrates of Cos. Oration 2 is of greater philosophical importance, as it deals with the nodon of common sense that is developed more fully in Reid's later work. Orations 3 and 4 deal with Reid's criticism of the theory of ideas. I concur with Todd's evaluation that they constitute "Reid's most concise statement of his objections" (2o). Even though this theory of ideas seemed to be almost universally adopted by philosophers, Reid argued that there was little evidence to support it. He wrote: "Although approval may be given to those who assert that ideas exist, yet, one must note that no indication or trace of them appears to me as I carry out this investigation in a serious manner" (62). Further, Reid argued that accepting the theory did not solve any difficulties but only created more serious problems and ultimately led to skepticism. Again, Reid said: "For according to this hypothesis, the ideas present in the mind are not merely the immediate but the only object of the intellect" (66). It is impossible to know that the ideas or images are representations of anything, as we know only the ideas. It should be mentioned that Todd's footnotes in the orations are very helpful, indicating passages in Reid's later works where similar topics are treated. Also Todd's bibliography not only includes books and articles by and about Reid, but lists a number of doctoral dissertations on common-sense philosophy. This edition of Reid's orations is a welcome addition to common-sense literature. TODD L. ADAMS Pennsylvania State University, Worthington Scranton Campus Paul Crowther. The Kantian Sublime: From Morality to Art. Oxford Philosophical Monographs , 1. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989. Pp. x + 178. NP. Despite the criticisms I shall make of Paul Crowther's book, I think that it is well worth reading. My doubts center on the book's relation to Kant's work. Crowther wants to abandon "Kant's overall architectonics (including the doctrine of the faculties), his main 'baroque' version of the mathematically sublime, and his entire treatment of the dynamicalmode, and the Deduction" (135): clearly this Kantian sublime will avoid many of the burdens of Kant's aesthetic theory. Crowther divides his book into three parts: the first considers Kant's earlier thought on the sublime, including its relation to the work of Burke and Addison, and links it to ethical thought. He claims that the grounds for "a stipulative link between sublimity and moral consciousness are already present in [Kant's] critical ethics" (27), but he reserves consideration of those grounds for the second part. There he surveys Kant's aesthetic theory and, as promised, analyzes the sublime in its relation to ethical thought. Though Kant acknowledges that 'judgements of sublimity do not require a Deduction along the lines of those required by beauty," they do require somejustification . In Crowther's version Kant holds that '~judgements of sublimity presuppose a BOOK REVIEWS 501 'susceptibility' to moral feeling; and since we can assume such a susceptibility in all men, such judgements can command assent" (126-~7). In the last chapters Crowther intends to reconstruct a sound yet Kantian theory of the sublime, linking it to art and thence to morality. We may expect him to proceed by identifying weaknesses in Kant's theory rather than simply dismissing parts that do not suit the theory he prefers. But the account of Kant that Crowther rejects is questionable in many ways, three examples of which will have to suffice. First, Crowther's criticisms depend on ascribing to Kant a rather dry notion of disinterestedness (57-61) while reserving a more interesting version, which is rather similar to Kant's but which Crowther borrows from R. W. Hepburn, for the reconstructed notion of the sublime (143ff., 149, 161). That richer version occurs in Section 49 of the Critique of Judgr~nt, where Kant points out how the use of reason and imagination add "an aesthetically...